


before it gets better (the darkness gets bigger)

by shineyma



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-22
Updated: 2015-05-22
Packaged: 2018-03-31 18:07:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3987691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineyma/pseuds/shineyma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The events, as they unfold, are terrible. The aftermath might be worse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	before it gets better (the darkness gets bigger)

**Author's Note:**

> I have a lot of comment replies to do and hope to get to them today. In the meantime, thanks very much for all the recent feedback!
> 
> **Warning:** this fic contains references to and the after-effects of past trauma. Proceed with caution.
> 
> Title from Fall Out Boy’s _Miss Missing You_. Thanks for reading and, as always, please be gentle if you review!

Jemma wakes screaming and struggling against the iron grip holding her in place.

“Jemma! Jemma, it was just a nightmare, I’m ri—you’re fine, it was just a dream—”

The words, when they reach her through the haze of terror she’s still trapped in, do nothing to calm her down. She shoves at the man holding her with all her might, and he releases her at once; as soon as he does, she scrambles off the bed.

She’s too shaky to keep her feet but too frightened to stay where she falls. She’s blinded by tears and her heart races as she crawls frantically across the room, expecting that any moment a hand will wrap around her ankle and drag her back. When she reaches the far wall (which she finds by nearly running head-first into it), she huddles against it, hugging her knees to her chest and hiding her face in them.

It doesn’t take long for reality to filter in, and she remembers where she is—remembers that she’s safe.

The knowledge does nothing for her fear.

The lamp comes on with a _click_ that echoes in the awful silence of the room, but Jemma keeps her eyes closed.

“I’m fine,” she tells her knees tremulously. “I’m fine. I just need a moment, that’s all. Let me catch my breath.”

Easier said than done, of course; she can’t seem to get enough oxygen to satisfy her panicked lungs, and her position isn’t helping. But she can’t look up. She can’t look at Grant.

He swallows; it’s even louder than the lamp clicking on. “Do you want me to leave?”

“No,” she says—nearly sobs. “Don’t, please. Just—just give me a moment.”

The bedsprings creak as he shifts position, but there are no footsteps, so she assumes he’s doing as she asks.

Of course he is. He always does.

Her breathing is ragged and loud as she struggles against tears and panic. But tears and panic combined are an easier fight than her memories, and they, of course, are the real enemy here.

There was a time when Grant could soothe her after her nightmares—when she would cry into his shoulder, let him hold her close and stroke her hair, say reassuring things like _I’ve got you_ and _you’re safe_ and _I’m right here_. There was a time when his arms meant comfort and safety.

She could never possibly articulate just how much she hates that she’s lost that.

She hears the bedsprings creak again and know that he’s fidgeting—fighting himself. Swallowing back questions and comfort, forcing himself to stay in place and not come draw her into his arms.

But she’s asked for a moment, and so he’ll give it to her.

She just needs a moment. Just a moment to separate past from present.

The silence is getting to her.

“Please don’t leave,” she says again, tearily. “I don’t want you to go.”

“I won’t,” he promises.

It’s the reassurance she wanted, but it still makes her flinch, and Grant inhales slowly.

He’s offered so many times to leave—not just the room, but _her_.

“If I make you uncomfortable,” he’s said, face set in earnest lines, “If you need space, or time—if you want me to leave, Jemma, all you have to do is say the word.”

And every time, she tells him not to be ridiculous. She hugs him with tears in her eyes, and they both pretend not to notice the way she tenses—just for a split second, just for as long as it takes her to force herself to relax—when he hugs her back.

It’s not as easy to find comfort in him as it used to be. She loves Grant with all of her heart, trusts him more than anyone, knows that he’d do anything to keep her safe—that he would die before harming her. She _knows_ that.

Intellectually.

Unfortunately, her mind—usually her greatest asset—fails her in this situation. It can’t override the lessons her body learnt over the course of two horrible, nightmarish weeks.

Jemma loves Grant. She trusts him. He would _never_ hurt her.

Not in this universe, at least.

That’s the rub of it, of course: her Grant would never harm her. But she _has_ been harmed.

She’s been harmed by a man who wore Grant’s face, who spoke with his voice, who touched her with his hands. A man who called her sweetheart and hugged her close the way Grant does, but kissed her in a way Grant would never think to—harsh, mean, with an edge of a threat behind it. Grant’s arms—arms in which she has found safety and comfort—held her in place and forced her to watch her team suffer.

The man who hurt her—Grant’s double from an alternate universe, an _unimaginable_ universe where the man she loves is a monster who thinks he owns her—is dead and gone.

But Grant is still here.

“I’m sorry,” she says, pressing her forehead more firmly to her knees. “It was just—in the dark, and the nightmare—”

Her voice breaks, and she bites back the rest of her apology. Even if she finishes it, she knows Grant won’t respond; he’ll say as little as possible until she’s managed to separate past from present—until she’s managed to fight back her instinctive fear enough to stop flinching at his voice.

This kills him, she knows. He’s been so sweet about it, so patient and kind—perfectly willing to let her redraw the boundaries of their relationship—perfectly willing to let her _end_ the relationship, if that’s what she needs—and he hasn’t said or done anything to make her feel guilty, but she _knows_ this is killing him. To see her cower away from him, frightened out of her wits by something as simple as the sound of his voice…

“I hate this,” she sobs. “I hate this _so much_.”

She does well, most of the time. Her Grant is so different—in mannerisms, in bearing, and most certainly in behavior—that it’s easy to separate him from the memory of his double. It’s only sometimes, when he moves a certain way or speaks a certain word or, once, wore a certain shirt, that her fear overwhelms her.

Or after a nightmare.

It seems to take years, but gradually, her breathing evens out. Her heart slows. Fear loosens its cold grip on her heart.

She risks a glance at Grant. He’s sitting on the edge of the bed, hands fisted on his thighs, and his expression—or at least the brief glimpse she gets of it, before he sees her looking and blanks his face—breaks her heart.

But her fear stays at a manageable level. The worst has passed.

“I’m all right,” she tells him, forcing the words past the lump of guilt in her throat. “I’m not frightened anymore.”

“Yes, you are,” he says, voice heavy with resignation. But he stands nonetheless and crosses the room to squat down in front of her. “Do you wanna come back to bed?”

A look at the bed serves only to remind her of her nightmare; she shakes her head, swiping at the tears on her cheeks with the heel of one hand.

“That’s okay.” His tone is steady—reassuring. “Can I sit next to you?”

“Yes, please.”

He eases himself over to sit beside her, leaving a good half-meter of space between them. She closes the distance at once, sliding over to press up against his side, and some of the tension goes out of his shoulders.

Some of the tension seeps out of her, as well. He’s changed soaps since what happened—a way to differentiate himself from his double, along with the increased color in his wardrobe and his new hairstyle and his carefully maintained stubble—and the sharp scent is soothing, if unfamiliar.

“Is it okay if I hug you?” he asks.

She thinks it over carefully, knowing that an honest answer is better than a quick one. _Is_ it okay if he hugs her? Sometimes it is—sometimes it’s comforting, reassuring, the way it used to be—but sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes it makes her feel trapped—cornered—and that way leads to bad things.

But she’s feeling better, now. Shoulder to shoulder with him, she’s feeling none of the panicked fluttering in her chest that marks her bad days.

“Yes,” she decides. “That would be nice.”

Grant wraps his arm around her shoulders loosely, and she leans against him, closing her eyes.

“I love you,” she says.

He _tap-tap-taps_ his fingers against her upper arm—something he’s started doing in lieu of squeezing her close, as he would have before—and says, “I love you, too.”

She opens her eyes and looks again at the bed. It, too, is new; the whole room is. After everything, she couldn’t bear to set foot in the old one.

She spent three days sleeping beside his double in ignorance, until all of the little signs added up and she could no longer dismiss his odd behavior as a bad mood or a minor snit—until she realized that the man in her bed was not the man she loved. Somehow, that haunts her more than the twelve days that she _did_ know who he was, even though those twelve days were the worst of her life.

She has nightmares, some nights—not this night, this night was pure memory, but others—about her Grant melting into his double while in their bed. Nightmares about passionate lovemaking turning violent, cruel—about something beautiful and wonderful and incredible being twisted into something awful.

She’s fairly certain that Grant has those nightmares, too. Something in her heart cracks at the thought.

“You keep offering to leave,” she says. She feels him shift to look down at her, but keeps her eyes resolutely on the bed. Her mouth has gone dry. “But I’ve never asked if you need to go.”

He tenses. “Jemma…”

“You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to,” she says. “I know this is—is difficult for you, too.”

“It is,” he admits, and _tap-tap-taps_ his fingers on her arm again. “But as long as you want me here, I’m not going anywhere.”

It’s entirely possible that he’s only saying that because he thinks it’s what she wants to hear. It would be just like him, to suffer through her nightmares and her fear for her sake while being crushed under the weight of his own emotions.

But she really, truly doesn’t want him to leave. She doesn’t have the strength to press the issue.

So she simply says, “Thank you,” and curls closer against his side.

“You’re welcome,” he murmurs.

They sit for a while in comfortable silence, but exhaustion is beginning to take its toll on Jemma. Between her poor and interrupted sleep and the last remnants of her panic, it’s difficult to keep her eyes open.

Grant doesn’t comment on her first stifled yawn, but the second makes him shift in place.

“Are you ready to go back to bed?” he asks.

Sleep will happen whether she likes it or not, and nightmares will come if they will. She might as well be comfortable for it—better the bed than the floor.

“Yes,” she says. “I think so.”

“Do you want me to take the floor?”

He’s had to, some nights—because there are times that her panic overrules her own desires and makes it impossible to sleep beside him—but she doesn’t think it will be necessary tonight. She _hopes_ it won’t.

She hates not being in control of her own emotions, her own impulses. She loves Grant and she trusts him not to hurt her—ever.

She misses the days when that was enough.

“No.” She stifles another yawn. “Stay with me, please.”

“Of course,” he agrees.

He stands and helps her to her feet, but she hesitates as they reach the bed.

“Only,” she bites her lip and glances up at him, feeling foolish. “Only, do you mind if we leave the lamp on?”

Something passes over his face—something she won’t let herself analyze. It’s selfish and horrible of her, but she can’t dwell for long on how much this affects Grant. Not while she’s struggling with her own mind.

He smiles, reassuring and kind. “Not at all. Which side do you want?”

It’s absurd that she has to consider the question, but she does. Some nights, sleeping between Grant and the wall makes her feel safe. Others, it makes her feel trapped. Just a few hours ago, when they first got into bed, she cringed at the thought of having him between her and the door.

But she just spent a good twenty minutes cuddled up against him. She thinks the wall is a good bet, this time.

“The right, please,” she says.

He pulls the covers back in wordless invitation, and she crawls into bed. He’s slow to follow suit, and she pretends not to notice the careful eye he keeps on her as he does so. He’s gauging her reaction, assuring himself that she’s not frightened by his movements.

It’s sweet, but it makes her throat tight.

Grant’s double is dead, but his actions linger. It’s so unfair—so much more than he deserves. It would have delighted him, she thinks, to know that he left a permanent mark on her.

She hates that he’s getting what he wants, even from beyond the grave.

“Okay?” Grant asks, brow creased in concern.

“No,” she says, and sidles closer to him. Her heart picks up speed, but only a touch. It’s manageable. “That’s better.”

“Let me know if you need me to move,” he offers.

“I will,” she says. Cuddling on the floor aside, she knows that tonight is not a night that she’ll be comfortable sleeping in his arms; as a compromise, she reaches out and takes his hand, lacing their fingers and holding on tight. “Goodnight, Grant. I love you.”

“Night, Jemma.” He raises their clasped hands and kisses her knuckles sweetly. “I love you, too.”

Sleep comes swiftly.

She wakes in the morning to find Grant watching her, his fingers still laced with hers.

She knows his claims of sleeping well—of sleeping at all—are a lie.


End file.
